How an Argument against Christianity Became an Argument for It.

Mary Magdalene in particular is sometimes called the apostle to the apostles as we’re going to see. She’s the first to discover the tomb is empty. And so the angel sends her, and apostle means messenger, to the 12 apostles. So she is properly called apostle to the apostles. And yet we can overlook the critical role that these women play. And not just us today or people historically, but even strangely enough in the Bible itself. So last week we looked at… Or two weeks ago, excuse me, we looked at what’s called the Corinthian creed In 1st Corinthians 15. St. Paul gives what appears to be the first Christian creed. And he’s very clear, he doesn’t write it. He’s passing on what he received when he became a Christian. But as one of the commenters, Teresa, pointed out, it’s quite striking that the testimony of the women who saw Jesus is completely left out of this early Creed.

Now you might think that’s horrible. You might think that can be explained, whatever, but it’s just historically a fact. If you look at this creed, this is 1st Corinthians 15:3-8. There’s references to the appearance to Peter, that’s Caphus. Then to the 12, the 12 apostles. Then this appearance to more than 500, that’s probably the Galilee appearance. Then there’s a description of an appearance to James. Then to all the apostles. And then St. Paul adds his own. Last of all, he appeared also to me. And yet it’s very striking who’s left off the list, these women. Now I will add, this isn’t in the Bible at all. There’s no mention of Jesus ever appearing to his mother Mary. And so does he? I mean, it seems unthinkable that Jesus, risen from the dead, never appears to his mother, and she never shows up to any of these apparitions. It is very kind of strange. But it’s not in there.

So what is going on here? And what we’re going to explore that in a couple parts today. First, I want to just establish historically, when we talk about the appearance to these women, what does that mean? Second, we’re going to look at the reasons why. If you’re trying to prove Christianity in the first century, you don’t start with the appearances to the women. That from an apologetic perspective, from an evidentiary perspective, first century, second century and so on. Audiences would’ve found this to be a very low evidentiary value. And paradoxically, as we’re going to see, that makes it today a very high evidentiary value. That’ll all make sense. But to give a basic argument at the outset. In courts, at the time both Roman and Jewish, women’s testimony was considered to be of little weight and often was explicitly excluded. There are a handful of exceptions, both Roman law and Jewish law.

This is not something found in the Bible. We’ll get to that too. But there’s a strong prejudice against women’s reliability in the first century. And so the fact that God chooses to use women, I think there’s a profound theological thing going on there where he is showing the equal dignity of women. But there’s also just from the perspective of apologetics and history, the fact that Christians really say no, well, like it or not, women were the first to discover the tomb, is pretty good evidence that that’s actually what happened. That this is not how things would’ve played out. If you were inventing a form of Christianity just making up a story of a resurrection. You’re not going to start in the first century by saying, oh yeah, it happened to some women. You’re going to go a different direction. And to prove that last point, I’m going to look at a very surprising source. But as I said, let’s get there piece by piece.

So to begin with, what do the four gospels say about the resurrection? And as we’re going to see, all four of the gospels have a lot to say, and all four of the gospels are going to mention this special role these women have. None of the gospels interestingly tell kind of the complete story. So in other words, if you’re looking at any event, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus on the cross, the resurrection, nobody writes down word for word, moment for moment everything that happens. Everybody includes some highlights. There’s a lot of reasons for this. You don’t have any means of recording event as they happen, writing things down as a laborious process by hand, parchman is expensive. And so there’s a strong economy of words. Do you basically necessarily have to say these are the important things to include? And so, one of the things is means for modern readership is we say, okay, he said these details, and he said those details and that can seem contradictory.

And I would just say at the onset, it’s not. So if I say James is at the party. And then later somebody else said Sarah was at the party. And a third person said, James and Sarah were at the party. There’s no contradiction. But you just get different perspectives and those different perspectives might include different details. Now instead of party, if you say empty tomb, this is almost literally the case of the four gospels. And I mentioned this because although that should be obvious, people will nevertheless point to these and say, aha, look at this contradiction. Only one angel is mentioned here, two are mentioned over there. Or this mentions three of the women who are at the tomb, this one only mentions one. That is no more of a contradiction than James and Sarah at the party. It’s just some authors focus on some things.

And in particular, the evangelists tend to focus on individuals who have, we might say, a speaking role. So if you’re mentioning the women saw the angels, you’re going to mention two angels. If you mention that one of the angels spoke to the women, you’re going to mention one angel. There’s no contradiction there. Makes perfect sense. But with all that said, I want to just dig into the gospels themselves. I’m going to start with Luke’s gospel because Luke, I think, gives us the most cohesive, maybe even coherent account, and we can make sense of what Matthew, Mark, and John tell us if we have kind of the big picture Luke paints. He begins by talking about the burial of Jesus. That when Jesus is buried, there are women who would come with him from Galilee who go in and they see the tomb, they see how his body was laid, and they go back home. And before the Sabbath comes, before it becomes Friday evening, and becomes a Sabbath, and they can’t work, they prepare spices and ointments. It’s great detail.

Then on the Sabbath, they rest according to commandments. So from Friday sundown until Saturday sundown, you can’t do any work that includes anointing the body. But on the first day of the week, so that Saturday night into Sunday night, this is Easter Sunday at early dawn. So Sunday morning they went to the tomb taking the spices which they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body. Now this is going to be another apparent contradiction that in one of the accounts it seems that they see that the tomb like the stone roll away. And it doesn’t actually say that, but it looks like it’s says that. And we’ll get into that. But it’s actually very clear from two of the four gospels that when they get there, the stone is rolled away.

And this is confusing. They are perplexed about this. And two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. Now Luke says men. But it’s very clear he doesn’t mean you to understand that literally just some guys showed up. “Hey, we were in the area, we had really bright clothes on. We thought we’d come and say hi.” No, these are clearly angels. And I mentioned this because Bart Ehrman seems to suggest this is a contradiction, but some say angels, some say men. But here’s the thing, angels are spiritual beings. So if you’re seeing them, they’re appearing to you in some form. Now we have a very particular kind of image of what an angel looks like from Western art. But that image isn’t a biblical image.

And so again, if an angel is going to appear to you, it’s a spiritual being. It does not have a body. You’re going to see an angel, you’re going to see something. And it’s very clear from the four gospels what they saw were angels in the form of men. This is not the only time in the Bible that happens by the way. But nevertheless, that’s why. No contradiction there. So the women are frightened, they bow their faces to the ground. And these men say to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen.” They remind them how he told them he was still in Galilee. The son of men must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified. And on the third day rise. The women remember his words, they return from the tomb, and they eventually tell this to the 11, and to all the rest.

So far we’re just told generically, these are the women who had come from Galilee, Luke, the names three of them. He says he was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women. So he’s very clear. This is not an entire list. This is not everyone who was there. But these are three people you may know who were there, or three people you may have heard of who were there. Significantly also, when they go back and tell the apostle… So imagine the scene. You’ve got a bunch of women who are freaked out, who are excited, who are probably all talking at once, and they’re telling you, “We went to the tomb, these stoners rolled away.” There were some men who seemingly were angels who told us Jesus rose from the dead. And maybe understandably the apostles don’t initially believe them. They understood this to be an idle tale. But Peter goes to investigate and we know from the Gospel of John that John also goes to investigate.

He sees the linen clause and he goes home wondering at what happened. Now Peter will soon see Jesus, but at this point he has not. So that’s Easter morning. That’s the first kind of thing that happens before they ever see the risen Christ, they see three things. They see that stone rolled away, they see the empty tomb, and they see angels. Okay, that’s Luke. Now go to Matthew. Matthew mentions this after the Sabbath towards the dawn of the first day of the week. So again, Easter Sunday morning, he only mentions Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the [inaudible 00:11:20]. Again, not a contradiction, but there it’s. And he says, “And behold, there is a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men.”

Now notice there’s two lines of action here. You’ve got what the women are doing, they’re going to see the tomb. And then you have what the angels do and what the guards are seeing, which is the guards are seeing an angel descend from heaven roll back the stone, and they are seemingly rendered comatose. At this point the angel says to the women, “Do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified. He is not here for his risen, as he said. Comes to the place where he lay, then go quickly and tells disciples he’s risen from the dead, and behold he’s going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. Lo, I’ve told you.” Now notice Matthew gives you fewer details, but nothing he says actually contradicts what Luke says. He includes one more detail. There’s an earthquake angel descending from heaven. I mean a pretty big thing. But he’s not saying the women saw that. He’s just saying this is what happened. That’s Matthew’s account.

Mark’s account includes Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James. He also mentions Salome. And he explains that they bring spices and they’re going very early on the first day of the week. And as they’re going, Mark mentions they’re saying to each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?” And looking up, they see the stone was rolled back if it was very large. So he’s actually pretty clear they don’t actually see the stone get rolled away. They just see that it already is gone. Entering the tomb, he says they saw a young man sitting on the right side dressed in a white robe and they were amazed. And he said to them, “Do not be amazed.” I mentioned this because do not be afraid. Do not be amazed. This is an angelic kind of greeting because angels typically encounter people who are terrified because they’re seeing angels. And so even they do not be amazed is a tell here that this is not just a young man who’s like hanging out in a tomb. This is clearly an angel.

“You seek Jesus of Nazareth who is crucified. He has risen, he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go tell his disciples and Peter that he’s going before you to Galilee. There you will see him as he told you.” So I mention all this. I know it might be like, well, this is a little repetitive. And that’s partly the point that they’re telling the same story from slightly different angles. That then brings us to the Gospel of John. He only mentions one of the women, Mary Magdalene, he says, “On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.”

But I think this is actually really telling the thing I said in the beginning that it’s not a contradiction to only mention one person, even if you know there were many. Because he talks about how she goes back to Simon Peter and the other disciple, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” So she’s saying we, she clearly is not the only one who went. But she’s the only one he mentions. Likewise, she goes and tells this to all of the disciples. But John only mentions Peter and himself because those are the two who are about to go investigate the tomb. This is all about highlighting certain people. This is not about denying that there were other people who were present. Just like again, if you say James went to the party, you don’t mean to say he’s the only person there. It wouldn’t be a party. No offense James.

So then Peter and John go to the tomb. We’re going to ignore them for a moment. I know that seems kind of strange. Well, this is not an episode about them. This is about the ladies. And jumping down to verse 11, Mary Magdalene goes back and she’s standing outside the tomb, and she’s weeping. And she goes in, she sees the two angels in white. They ask her, “Why are you weeping?” She says, “Because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they’ve laid him.” She then turns around and she sees Jesus. She doesn’t know it’s Jesus. He says to her “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” She then thinks he’s the gardener and says, “Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve laid him and I will take him away.” Jesus then says to her, “Mary,” she turns and says to him in Hebrew, “Rabbani,” which means teacher.

He then says, “Do not hold me,” or some translations have, “Do not clinging to me, for I’ve not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene then goes back and tells all the disciples, “I’ve seen the Lord.” And she told them that he had said these things to her. So you see there’s a common story that kind of emerges from this. Early in the morning, first day of the week, a group of women including Mary Magdalene and some others go, they find the stone rolled away. There are two angels who look like men who are there. One of them speaks and says, he’s not here, he’s risen. Explains this is prophesied in the scripture, and then tells them to tell the others, and specifically tells them to prepare for this Galilee appearance, which is again, probably the appearance to the 500.

Their story seems confusing, seems unbelievable, unrealistic. The 12 don’t originally believe it. Peter, and we know from John also John, go and investigate this story. At this point, nobody is actually seeing Jesus. Mary Magdalene, and what we just heard, becomes the first to see Jesus. She’s quickly joined by Peter and by a bunch of other resurrection appearances. But that’s kind of the order of events. So having said all that, why does this matter? Why do the women matter? What is their kind of particular role to play in all of this? And I want to suggest that their role is multifaceted. But let’s start with the problems with using women as evidence in the time period. So let’s look at Roman law and in Jewish law. So in Roman law, it’s a little nuanced, a little complicated. It’s easy to just say, well, women’s testimony wasn’t allowed. That’s not strictly correct. It was not typically given women could be called as defendants.

You know what? I’ll just quote you. Women in the law, in the Roman Empire by Judith Evans Grubs where she says though their right to initiate legal action was restricted. Women could certainly be made defendants in civil or criminal cases. Many examples are known from legal and literary sources. In such cases also it was considered more fitting for a woman to be represented by a male, but it was possible for a woman to defend herself in court. We know of three cases that are given by Valerius Maximus. Now Valerius Maximus, he’s a Roman historian and he’s writing in the year 30. So probably around the year Jesus is crucified. He is basically a perfect contemporary of everything going on in the New Testament. And he gives kind of a little bit of a legal history in Book 8. And he then goes on and says, “Nor must we omit those women whom the condition of their sex and the modesty of woman’s robe could not hinder from appear and speaking in the forum and the courts.”

So he’s looking here for women who’ve publicly testified and particularly defended a case. And he has three examples as I mentioned. Two of them, he’s kind of impressed with, one of them he’s unimpressed with. Now the first is Maesia of Sentinum, who she goes in front of a great concourse of people, pleads her own case in front of the prey tour, Titus. And he says she observed all the parts and stages of a true defense, not only diligently but courageously was acquitted at the first hearing by the votes of all. So she defended herself and she won the case. And so he says because under the body of a woman, she carried a manly resolution. They called her androgyny. And as you know, if you know the word androgynous, they’re basically calling her a man in a woman’s body. That’s the high praise they’re giving her that I think tells you everything you need to know about the way men and women were viewed.

Even when a woman does represent herself, even when she does successfully defend her own case, it’s like, oh, okay, you’re a man in a woman’s body then. That’s the first of the three examples. Second is Afrania, who is the wife of a senator. And this is the case that Valerius Maximus message is not impressed with. He says she was extremely eager for lawsuits, and that she always pleaded for herself, not because she liked advocates, but because she had bounded insolence. It’s not that she couldn’t get a lawyer, she just was so insolent of a woman that she insisted on repeatedly presenting her own case in lawsuits. And he says by her perpetual vexing of the tribunal with her bawling to which the forum was unaccustomed, she grew to be a noted example of female vindictiveness. And so much so that the name Afrania was given as a reproach to all contentious women.

So again, it’s probably not going out too far in a limb to say this reflects something of a bit of a sexist culture, we might say. And he then talks about the date she dies. Same as better to remember when such a monster departed from the world than when she came in. He loathes her for repeatedly bringing lawsuits that she represents herself in. And the third is Hortensia. Now this is confusing because she is the daughter of the orator, Hortensius. So Hortensia is outraged that the order of wives were being too heavily taxed and none of the men are willing to take the case. And so she speaks boldly and successfully in the defense of the wives and were told that she revives the image of her father’s eloquence. And most of this tax is remitted. She’s not totally successful, but largely successful. And so we’re told that Hortensius, her father, then lived again in the female sex and breathed in the words of his daughter.

So again, it’s oh, it’s a man living through you, specifically it’s your father speaking through you. And then Valerius Maximus, as if his male descendants had copied her force in vigor. So great and inheritance of Hortensia and eloquence would not come to an end in the speech of a woman. So again, he is, you might say progressive in the sense that he’s like, hey, look at these three women who successfully argued. And nevertheless, it is dripping with disdain for the idea that a woman might do this. That gives you a sense because, Bart Ehrman, I know has mentioned. When we’re talking about the resurrection appearances, this is not a question of legal testimony. So you might say, why does it matter that women’s testimony didn’t count for anything? Well, why didn’t it count? Because of this idea that women couldn’t do this.

There was a distrust of women you might say. And that’s going to be why the resurrection appearances from women weren’t taken particularly seriously. And why? If you’re making an early Christian creed to convince other people of the resurrection, you don’t start with the women batch Roman law. Roman law is actually mild compared to what we find in the Jewish sources. So the first and most famous example is from Josephus. And he says, when giving testimony, “Let not a single witness be credited, but three or two at the least. And those such whose testimony is confirmed by their good lives.” But then he explicitly adds, “Let not the testimony of women be admitted on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” Then he says, “Nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul. Since it is probable that they may not speak truth either out of hope of gain or fear of punishment.”

So you see this kind of deeply built in mistrust of women and servants as well. Now I want to point out, and in fact in the translation into English that we get in the 17th century, the Anglican priest, William Winston, points out in a footnote that this is not something that we find explicitly in the Pentateuch. It’s not quoting the Bible here. This is just seemingly reflective of the view of the Scribes and the Pharisees. Now with said that there’s no other examples of this in Jewish government, that we don’t find other Jewish sources that talk about this restriction of women giving testimony. But that’s actually not true. We do. In the Jewish Talmud, we’re going to get into that. But first, what the Bible actually says is much simpler. Deuteronomy 17:6 says in capital cases, “On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses, he that is to die shall be put to death. A person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.”

That if you’ve got someone accused of a capital crime, you cannot execute him if you only have one witness. He said, she said, or he said, he said, that is not acceptable to put someone to death. But it can be he said or she said, it is not they have to be male witnesses. It’s not they have to be non-servants. None of that is in there. Servants are free to testify. Women are free to testify. This is later restrictions from the Scribes and Pharisees and others. But if you go to the Jewish Talmud, there are a couple references to this. First in Shevuot 30a, that the oath of testimony is practiced with regard to men but not with regard to women. Now, this is about giving the oath before you give testimony.

So men can take the oath, women cannot. And why? Because the oath of testimony is practiced only with regard to those fit to testify. So because women can’t give testimony, they also cannot take an oath promising, we would say to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They’re not bound by this oath because they can’t give testimony in the first place. That’s what the Talmud is saying. And then later in Rashashana 1:8, it gives a whole list of people who are just systemically omitted from being able to give testimony. And it’s a strange list. It’s thieves and robbers. First, it’s those who play with dice and other games of chance for money, so gamblers. Then it’s those who lend money with interest, so users. Those who race pigeons and place wagers on the outcome. Today it might be like a horse race or something.

So it’s another kind of gambling, not dice, but if you’re betting at the track. And then merchants who deal in produce of the sabbatical year. Why is that? Because it can be eaten but can’t be an audit for commerce. This is free food. If you’re selling free food, you’re also a thief. And then finally, slaves. You saw the prohibition that Josephus has. This is there as well. And all of these thieves and robbers are united by a common principle. Any testimony for which a woman is unfit, these too also are unfit. And then it explains, although in certain cases woman’s testimony is accepted, e.g to did testify to the death of someone’s husband and the majority of cases, her testimony is not valid. So again, I wanted to just be clear, this is not a complete prohibition as you sometimes hear, but it is a pretty broad prohibition where it’s just impossible for women to give testimony in court.

Okay. Having said that, what does that mean in terms of apologetics? And I want to think about apologetics then and apologetics now. So in apologetics then the fact that women were the first witnesses of the resurrection was actually a point that was raised against Christians. And that’s something that is… I think it’s easy to overlook. That we are not just saying these are unlikely people to look to. But Celsius, who is one of the first known opponents of Christianity, Origin responds to him in a work fittingly called contra Celsius. Celsius gives the following kind of case. He points out that we don’t know of any cases of anyone ever rising with a true body. And we have other cases that are mythological. It’s like, why wouldn’t you take this as a myth as well? You’ve got a voice from the cross. When Jesus breathes hi last, you’ve got an earthquake, you’ve got darkness. Just looks pretty mythological he’s saying.

Celsius is making an argument I think a lot of people make today. But then he says, and this is the argument that people don’t make today, while Jesus was alive, who’s of no assistance to himself, he didn’t take himself down from the cross. But when dead we’re supposed to believe he rose again. And that he shows the marks of his punishment, how his hands were pierced with nails. And he says, and who beheld this? A half frantic woman. The Greek there even means like a hysterical woman. And as you state and some other one perhaps of those who are engaged in the same system of delusion. So you got a woman or two and they’re crazy, they’re delusional, and they’ve got a peculiar state of mind. Or maybe they’ve got a wandering imagination. So he starts to imagine all the reasons they might be lying, all the reasons they might be making this up.

But notice the built-in assumption. You got a half frantic woman, you got this hysterical woman. What’s she going to be able to talk about? So in apologetics then, the fact that it was a woman was a point held against the Christians. Now paradoxically, this is really helpful for apologetics now, because why would Christians invent evidence they know would be used against them? Why create a case that you’re building in the holes in your own case on purpose? That doesn’t make sense. So when we talk about apologetics, now I want to look at Bart Ehrman. So who is Bart Ehrman? Okay, so he is no friend of Christianity. He is an ex Christian, but he is a reputable, well-respected scholar as well as a skeptic.

And Ehrman has a book called Peter Paul and Mary Magdalene, in which he makes a case, which is the exact case I’m trying to make, that the only reason you have women at the tomb in the four gospels is because that actually happened. He puts it like this. He says there’s no doubt that Peter became dominant as the leader of the church in the early Christian movement. And Mary Magdalene receives into the background. But Mary Magdalene is not mentioned in the writings of Paul. She’s not mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. After Easter Sunday, we know very, very little of anything reliable about what happens to Mary Magdalene. So in contrast, we have scores of passages to talk about Peter. His involvement with Jesus during his life and his reference in his leadership of the church after his death.

And so Ehrman points out, okay, well what about Mary? She’s scarcely known in the little talked about. So if storytellers were to make up or at least modify the stories of Christianity’s beginning, why would they invent the story that it was a woman who started it? Wouldn’t they be more likely to celebrate the greatness of the illustrious Apostle Peter? Wouldn’t they show that although he had denied Christ at the moment of crisis, he had redeemed himself in the aftermath of being the first to realize that Christ had been vindicated by God, raised from the dead, and exalted to Heaven. Remember how narratively perfect. If you’re making the movie of Christianity, or if you are inventing the religion, you’re going to use Peter. There’s a great story arc, a great moment of redemption. And by the way, he’s the first pope. He’s the leader of this whole band.

No, Ehrman’s not going to call him the first pope, but you get the idea. He’s clearly the leader of the Christians. Why not have him also be the one who discovers the resurrection? Wouldn’t that give him more credibility? Wouldn’t that give Christianity more credibility? But no Ehrman said, why would someone make up a story, but a virtually unknown woman discovering the empty tomb and proclaiming the resurrection? Especially as the point of the stories, is to give evidence that Jesus’s death was not the last word. That God himself had the last word by reversing the illicit judgment of the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities, by raising his son from the dead with the idle tale of a woman being invented as evidence for the resurrection. I mean, remember in the same gospels telling us women were the ones who discovered the tomb. They’re built in the idea that this was viewed as a crazy story, that it was not taken seriously initially even by the apostles.

So they know. It’s not like, oh, we had no idea that the Jews and Romans were sexist against women. No, it was known at the time. And that same kind of dismissive attitude towards women was widespread enough that when the women come to the apostles, they dismiss them as well. Ehrman goes on, that seems unlikely. Okay, then where did the stories of Mary Magdalene, either by herself or in the company of other women originally come from? It is hard to imagine them being made up by a number of early… Excuse me, if it is hard to imagine them being made up by a number of early Christian storytellers, then maybe the stories have a real historical basis. Maybe it actually was Mary who found the tomb empty on the third day and who proclaimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. So that is the case of the women at the tomb that really the only reason to include that Mary Magdalene and other women go there is because that’s historically what happened.

But they really did find an empty tomb. They really did find the stone rolled away. They really did find two men in dazzling white apparel who told them Jesus was risen from the dead. Now, you might still think they were delusional, you might still think they’re making this story up. But it’s clear that this is not some later Christians. Now this does a couple things for the Christian case. Number one, you’ll sometimes find people, and I actually had this in the comments of the YouTube video from two weeks ago, where someone said, oh, the earliest testimony about the resurrection is from St. Paul. Paul didn’t even know the historical Jesus. He just sees a vision. So maybe they’re all seeing visions. Well, no, because clearly the Mary Magdalene stories and the story of the women of the tomb, there must historically have been an event where women did go to the tomb.

They did find the tomb empty. And you can’t just write that off as a vision or a hallucination. That doesn’t make sense. You don’t have a hallucination of the tomb being open and the guard’s not being there or being comatose. It just doesn’t work. It’s clearly not a hallucination here. And so you can’t just start with Paul, and then dismiss Paul who he did know Jesus. You’ve got this earlier account. Does that make sense? So the earliest witnesses of the resurrection, the earliest witnesses of the events of Easter Sunday are historically the women. And it has to be, because if it was historically the men, if men had first seen it, they wouldn’t have written women getting there first into the story. So they must have, whether you believe the women or not, the women are the first ones to get to the tomb.

And so Christianity starts in a real way right there. Like Easter Sunday, this pivotal moment, this central doctrine of Christianity is first discovered by the women and they’re then sent to the others. Now, this gets independently validated and confirmed in a number of ways. Peter and John go to the tomb. They check it out for themselves. Jesus appears to Peter, to the 12, and so on and so forth. But you have this important evidence. And, again, you can’t just wave it away by saying, well, the gospels are written after Paul. Doesn’t matter. They’re clearly speaking of independent information that they’re not getting from Paul because Paul doesn’t mention it, and which can’t be explained away in any way other than historically. They must have seen something. They must have encountered something or you wouldn’t be saying this. So that’s the case of the women at the empty tomb.

Now, you can do whatever you want with that. You can say, well, maybe the women are lying about it. But then you have to create a pretty broad kind of conspiracy theory where the women, for no apparent reason, are lying about it to the apostles ,who then go and lie about seeing the risen Jesus. And you have layers upon implausible lie after implausible lie. It’s not one person invents the story. It’s a much bigger sort of scandal, sort of conspiracy, whatever you want to call it. So that’s woman of the empty tomb. I think it’s a good place to start that they claim to have seen the stone rolled away. They claim to have seen the empty tomb. They claim to have seen angels in the tomb. They claim to have taught with the angels in the tomb. And eventually, at least one of them, of them, Mary Magdalene claims who’ve actually seen Jesus.

That’s important evidence because you have to account for that evidence somehow. And the best way to account for it, I would argue, is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Hallelujah. That Easter really is true. Okay, in the next two weeks, I’m going to look at two other resurrection appearances and what they mean first for the Eucharist and then for the papacy. That’s all I’m going to tell you now. So you’ll have to tune in a week from now or whenever, I don’t know. You do do whatever you want to do. But in a week from now and two weeks from now, I’ll have two more episodes. God bless you. Hope you enjoy. Comment, and share, and do all that stuff.